For story fans, here are some recent initiatives and goodies worth your attention:

The 10,000 Strangers Campaign. From July 30-Nov. 6, 2012 (election day), Matthew Ross Smith will slowly drive across America. His goal is to shake 10,000 hands in 100 days. He will do this by introducing himself to 10,000 strangers in parks, libraries, and other public spaces. For anyone who will take 30 seconds to talk to him (no guarantee these days), he’ll offer a self-addressed, pre-stamped postcard with instructions to share a single memory — “a story you don’t want to be forgotten” (along with a photograph or illustration) and mail it back. This project is a spinoff of Smith’s Spaces Between Your Fingers Project. Read more about 10,000 Strangers here and here.

The Talking Shop, a six-part radio series on stories and storytelling, was recorded in April and May by the Academy of Oratory; the recordings can now be heard online. The series consists of:

Storytelling: The Deeper Level, is a 19-minute video that Limor Shiponi created based on a request by Madelyn Blair for a business storytelling course. See it here.

The Museum of Broken Relationships grew from a traveling exhibition revolving around the concept of failed relationships and their ruins. The Museum describes itself as offering “a chance to overcome an emotional collapse through creation: by contributing to the Museum’s collection.” Conceptualized in Croatia by Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić, the Museum has since toured internationally, amassing its collection. The museum’s site notes that “people embraced the idea of exhibiting their love legacy as a sort of a ritual, a solemn ceremony.” Check it out here.

Learning Through Stories is a new project by Annie Murphy Paul on the Brilliant Blog: Learning Through Stories. Writes Paul: “A lot of scientific research — and our own experience — demonstrates that we understand and remember material best when it’s presented to us as a narrative, or when we tell our own story about it. So: Once a week, I’ll be inviting you to share your stories of where and when and how you learned something in particular. And I’ll be asking you to do one additional, perhaps challenging thing that is nevertheless the key to the exercise: to draw out a generalizable lesson from your story that could apply to the learning of other things, and could be used by people other than yourself.” The project’s first question is: “How did you learn to ride a bike?”

YoMu is a very high-tech, high-concept tool described as “a mobile and personal museum experience.” You really have to see a demo (embedded below) to gain even a glimpse of understanding of what it does, though its site notes: “It will be your guide, tell you hidden stories and show you images, art and sounds that surround you. YoMu is a personalized, situational awareness app that let’s you (re)discover the city you live in. I’m not completely convinced that YoMu is a story tool, but I’m a sucker for technology I’ve never seen before. Check it out here.